A true liberal

[Merlin1047]

I was searching for line drawings of Army helicopters and somehow this garbage came up in the results. I clicked on the page and found that it is an extensive rambling from the demented, drug-fuzzed mind of none other than that icon of leftism - Abbie Hoffman.

I spent a little time reading his garbage and got rather tickled. My humor turned to amazement that so many Americans were sufficiently stupid to hold this jackass up as some sort of hero. But then I got to thinking - the same type of folks are supporting kerry today, so the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Actually, I'm pretty amazed that the Democrats didn't dig him up and put him on display during their convention.

Anyway, if you're up for an insight into a truly bizarre and demented mind, here's the link:

http://www.tenant.net/Community/steal/steal.html

And here's just a little teaser:
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
At large take-out stands you can say you or your brother just picked up an order of fifteen hamburgers or a bucket of chicken, and got shorted. We have never seen or heard of anybody getting turned down using this method. If you want to get into a grand food heist from take-out stands, you can work the following nervy bit: from a pay phone, place an order from a large delivery restaurant. Have the order sent to a nearby apartment house. Wait a few minutes in the booth after you've hung up, as they sometimes call back to confirm the order. When the delivery man goes into the apartment house to deliver the order, you can swipe the remaining orders that are still in his truck.

In fancy sit-down restaurants, you can order a large meal and halfway through the main course, take a little dead cockroach or a piece of glass out of your pocket and place it deftly on the plate. Jump up astonished and summon the headwaiter. "Never have I been so insulted. I could have been poisoned" you scream slapping down the napkin. You can refuse to pay and leave, or let the waiter talk you into having a brand new meal on the house for this terrible inconvenience.

In restaurants where you pay at the door just before leaving, there are a number of free-loading tricks that can be utilized. After you've eaten a full meal and gotten the check, go into the restroom. When you come out go to the counter or another section of the restaurant and order coffee and pie. Now you have two bills. Simply pay the cheaper one when you leave the place. This can be worked with a friend in the following way. Sit next to each other at the counter. He should order a big meal and you a cup of coffee. Pretend you don't know each other. When he leaves, he takes your check and leaves the one for the large meal on the counter. After he has paid the cashier and left the restaurant, you pick up the large check, and then go into the astonishment routine, complaining that somebody took the wrong check. You end up only paying for your coffee. Later, meet your partner and reverse the roles in another place.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Modern liberalism has truly become just a bad behavior justifying mentality. This is sad.

 

[MrMarbles]

True liberal, sounds more like a guy that lost his job through conservative make rich richer economics. Everyone needs to survive somehow.

 

[KarlMarx]

I was searching for line drawings of Army helicopters and somehow this garbage came up in the results. I clicked on the page and found that it is an extensive rambling from the demented, drug-fuzzed mind of none other than that icon of leftism - Abbie Hoffman.

I spent a little time reading his garbage and got rather tickled. My humor turned to amazement that so many Americans were sufficiently stupid to hold this jackass up as some sort of hero. But then I got to thinking - the same type of folks are supporting kerry today, so the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Actually, I'm pretty amazed that the Democrats didn't dig him up and put him on display during their convention.

Anyway, if you're up for an insight into a truly bizarre and demented mind, here's the link:

http://www.tenant.net/Community/steal/steal.html

And here's just a little teaser:
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
At large take-out stands you can say you or your brother just picked up an order of fifteen hamburgers or a bucket of chicken, and got shorted. We have never seen or heard of anybody getting turned down using this method. If you want to get into a grand food heist from take-out stands, you can work the following nervy bit: from a pay phone, place an order from a large delivery restaurant. Have the order sent to a nearby apartment house. Wait a few minutes in the booth after you've hung up, as they sometimes call back to confirm the order. When the delivery man goes into the apartment house to deliver the order, you can swipe the remaining orders that are still in his truck.

In fancy sit-down restaurants, you can order a large meal and halfway through the main course, take a little dead cockroach or a piece of glass out of your pocket and place it deftly on the plate. Jump up astonished and summon the headwaiter. "Never have I been so insulted. I could have been poisoned" you scream slapping down the napkin. You can refuse to pay and leave, or let the waiter talk you into having a brand new meal on the house for this terrible inconvenience.

In restaurants where you pay at the door just before leaving, there are a number of free-loading tricks that can be utilized. After you've eaten a full meal and gotten the check, go into the restroom. When you come out go to the counter or another section of the restaurant and order coffee and pie. Now you have two bills. Simply pay the cheaper one when you leave the place. This can be worked with a friend in the following way. Sit next to each other at the counter. He should order a big meal and you a cup of coffee. Pretend you don't know each other. When he leaves, he takes your check and leaves the one for the large meal on the counter. After he has paid the cashier and left the restaurant, you pick up the large check, and then go into the astonishment routine, complaining that somebody took the wrong check. You end up only paying for your coffee. Later, meet your partner and reverse the roles in another place.

Yes, I remember "Steal this book" by Abbie Hoffman. It was definitely full of larceny, mayhem and dirty tricks.

Back in the 9th grade, a friend of mine managed to get a copy of this book from a local head shop (back in those days, selling drug paraphernalia was not yet illegal). We had never heard of the book before, but we all knew who Abbie Hoffman was (sort of). After looking at some of the more choice sections of the book, we all thought it would be funny to do some of things he described. Fortunately, none of us did. My father got wind of this and warned me that the stuff in the book was clearly illegal and I could wind up in jail (or at least reform school) for doing it. He must have contacted my friend's parents or else they found the book on their own. The next day, he no longer had it and we never saw the book again.

A few months later, the head shop was closed down because the owner was found selling drugs from the back room of his store. By the mid to late 1970s, bongs, pipes, coke spoons and other drug paraphernalia became illegal to sell (at least to minors) in New York (and probably in most states).

Now that I look at the text of the book 30 + years later, I'm horrified at some of the stuff this guy was advocating. What is even more frightening is that this garbage was in the hands of a bunch of naive 14 year olds who might have been dumb enough to try it. Fortunately, this crap didn't get in the hands of some of the tough kids in school.... they definitely would have actually gone ahead and done some of them.

What happened to Abby Hoffman? He committed suicide several years ago. I guess the care free hippie life and his radical revolutionary ways caught up with him. I know that he spent some time in jail. Life wasn't a bowl of cherries for this guy, after all.

 

[Merlin1047]

What happened to Abby Hoffman? He committed suicide several years ago. I guess the care free hippie life and his radical revolutionary ways caught up with him. I know that he spent some time in jail. Life wasn't a bowl of cherries for this guy, after all.

Yup, Abby finally decided to perform one act which was a service to his country by ending his miserable existence.

You have to wonder how someone gets to be such a total scumbag.

 

[Merlin1047]

True liberal, sounds more like a guy that lost his job through conservative make rich richer economics. Everyone needs to survive somehow.

:rotflmao: :rotflmao: :rotflmao: :rotflmao:

Spoken like a true leftist. There is no act so heinous that it cannot be rationalized by applying the old principle of "it's all relative".

Hoffman was a worthless scum. His condition and his actions were the product of voluntary decisions on his part. Please spare me your tired old song of how "the man" or "the system" or "the rich" abused him. That old line should be getting embarrassing even to the shallow-minded.

 

[DKSuddeth]

who the hell is abbie hoffman, why are you declaring him/her 'a leftist icon', and where in that article does it declare itself 'liberal' in any way, shape, or form?

 

[KarlMarx]

who the hell is abbie hoffman, why are you declaring him/her 'a leftist icon', and where in that article does it declare itself 'liberal' in any way, shape, or form?

Who was Abbie Hoffman? Founder of the Youth International Party (i.e. the Yippies), one of the Chicago 7 and behind the riots during the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. Definitely a radical, leftist troublemaker, of course, in some circles he's equated to Robin Hood.

Do a Google Search and see what I mean.

 

[Merlin1047]

who the hell is abbie hoffman, why are you declaring him/her 'a leftist icon', and where in that article does it declare itself 'liberal' in any way, shape, or form?

Hoffman was the ultimate super-liberal loon - he was anti practically everything. He hated business in every form, he hated the military and he hated the government. Actually, it would be easier to list the things Hoffman didn't despise.

His philosophy was liberal. He felt that any act could be justified and that there was no such thing as "truth" and morals were for losers. Hoffman was one of the Chicago Seven and I believe that were he alive today, he would be cheering terrorists if not actively aiding them.

To me, that pretty much sums up the philosophy of the far left looney fringe of the Democratic party today. Some things don't change much.

Actually, I will now admit that the title of my thread "A true liberal" is an unfair characterization. I wanted to see if you were awake. Besides, I owed you one.


:teeth:

 

[KarlMarx]

Hoffman was the ultimate super-liberal loon - he was anti practically everything. He hated business in every form, he hated the military and he hated the government. Actually, it would be easier to list the things Hoffman didn't despise.

His philosophy was liberal. He felt that any act could be justified and that there was no such thing as "truth" and morals were for losers. Hoffman was one of the Chicago Seven and I believe that were he alive today, he would be cheering terrorists if not actively aiding them.

To me, that pretty much sums up the philosophy of the far left looney fringe of the Democratic party today. Some things don't change much.

Actually, I will now admit that the title of my thread "A true liberal" is an unfair characterization. I wanted to see if you were awake. Besides, I owed you one.


:teeth:

Liberal in 2004 = Socialist in 1950

 

[fuzzykitten99]

True liberal, sounds more like a guy that lost his job through conservative make rich richer economics. Everyone needs to survive somehow.

so it's ok to steal if you have lost your job and are too lasy to take any other outside of your current field?

Why do you advocate illegal activity, and say "Oh, this person has been wronged. Though he didn't actually WORK for the things he has stolen, rich people paid for them, so it makes it right?" Stealing is stealing.

And what makes you think it is the conservatives that want to make the rich richer? Kerry is the one that wants to increase the gas tas by 50 cents. Oh, and who has a sheister lawyer as their running mate? That lawyer made millions off of people who sued doctors for things that weren't their fault and could not be proven. Talk about making the rich richer...Edwards was doing that for himself at the expense of us other Americans who have to pay for his bullshit. My healthcare expenses at my prior job went up by 75%. Because of assholes like Edwards, making themselves richer, then I and other working people have to pay the tab.

My child's pediatrician told me that he may give up practice because malpractice insurance is going up, and it is starting to take its toll. He pays $127k/year for his policy, and it is going up to $135k. I would hate to have to transfer to another Dr. because I like the one my son sees, and he has seen the same one since birth in the hospital. He is great with Nathan, shows genuine love for kids, and is so easy to ask questions about stuff. Our clinic would be losing a great asset if he decides to leave.
Thank Edwards & other lawyers who make millions off others suffering.

 

[Merlin1047]

so it's ok to steal if you have lost your job and are too lasy to take any other outside of your current field?

Why do you advocate illegal activity, and say "Oh, this person has been wronged. Though he didn't actually WORK for the things he has stolen, rich people paid for them, so it makes it right?" Stealing is stealing.

Fuzzy, I believe that's Canadian socialist logic - if your moose runs off, it's acceptable to "borrow" your neighbor's. After all, what's he doing with a moose if you don't have one?

 

[KarlMarx]

so it's ok to steal if you have lost your job and are too lasy to take any other outside of your current field?

Well...let me tell you a story about my Mom. My Dad and her came to America from Italy in 1955, she was about 18 or 19. Neither one of them has any more than a 6th grade education. Anyway, she worked at a shoe factory from 1955 until the company finally went bankrupt in 1997. OK? So, what does a 60 year old woman do? She goes to school to learn how to write and read English. After about a year, she found another job at the local IBM plant where she worked for a year as a temp. They couldn't hire her permanently, so she found another job as a cleaning lady at a local Senior Living Center. She is so well treated there that she hasn't yet retired and she is 67.

My Dad? He worked at the shoe factory until they shut down the tannery in 1966. So he then found a job in construction. In 1977, the construction industry took a downturn, so he found a job working for a local village (driving trucks and doing miscellaneous stuff). He retired in 1995.

Why do you advocate illegal activity, and say "Oh, this person has been wronged. Though he didn't actually WORK for the things he has stolen, rich people paid for them, so it makes it right?" Stealing is stealing.

And what makes you think it is the conservatives that want to make the rich richer? Kerry is the one that wants to increase the gas tas by 50 cents. Oh, and who has a sheister lawyer as their running mate? That lawyer made millions off of people who sued doctors for things that weren't their fault and could not be proven. Talk about making the rich richer...Edwards was doing that for himself at the expense of us other Americans who have to pay for his bullshit. My healthcare expenses at my prior job went up by 75%. Because of assholes like Edwards, making themselves richer, then I and other working people have to pay the tab.

Instead of cursing and swearing and getting my blood pressure in the quadruple digits posting how I feel about lawyers, let me give you an idea with the following witicisms.

I like lawyers, especially in a butter sauce served with a nice white wine.

Lawyers are definitely good for something, especially target practice.

And lawyers are honest, really...they only lie when their lips are moving.

My sister told my parents that she wanted to be a lawyer, but they disowned her, so she decided to get back into their good graces, she'd have to switch to a more honorable profession...you'll find her working on the corner of Hollywood and Vine...reasonbale rates after 10pm.

Why don't lawyers ever get parasitic worms? Professional courtesy

What do you get when you cross a lawyer with a pig? Nothing, there are some things even pigs won't do.

What is black and brown and looks good on a lawyer? A Doberman Pinscher.

What is the difference between a piranhha and a lawyer? One is a vicious animal with an unsatiable appetite for blood and the other is a fish.

My child's pediatrician told me that he may give up practice because malpractice insurance is going up, and it is starting to take its toll. He pays $127k/year for his policy, and it is going up to $135k. I would hate to have to transfer to another Dr. because I like the one my son sees, and he has seen the same one since birth in the hospital. He is great with Nathan, shows genuine love for kids, and is so easy to ask questions about stuff. Our clinic would be losing a great asset if he decides to leave.
Thank Edwards & other lawyers who make millions off others suffering.

And you're not the only one...whatever you do...don't get pregnant again...you may find yourself without an OB/GYN. Many of them are refusing to take on new patients because of malpractice insurance premiums. Also many of them are refusing to take on any patients if either one of the baby's parents is a lawyer.

Who was it, Spillmind? That would not believe that part of the reason that health care costs are through the roof because of lawyers and litigation should read your story!

 

[DKSuddeth]

Actually, I will now admit that the title of my thread "A true liberal" is an unfair characterization. I wanted to see if you were awake. Besides, I owed you one.


:teeth:

Touche'

 

[Bullypulpit]

You have to wonder how someone gets to be such a total scumbag.

All you need to do is research Dubbyuh's career to find out

 

[insein]

All you need to do is research Dubbyuh's career to find out

Spoken like a truely pathetic soul. I pity you bully. Your like the child that has to yell out obscene things for people or even parents to pay attention him. Your the dog that has to destroy a pillow or chair in order to get their master to pay attention to them. Your the raging protestor that has to scream falsehoods at the top of their lungs to hide their pleas of "Pay Attention to me because my mommy and daddy never did, Damn it!!"

I no longer get angry when i see your idiotic comments. I merely cast pity upon you and upon all those you meet. For there's must be a meloncholy day when they are around a being so sullen and distraught as you.

 

[Annie]

who the hell is abbie hoffman, why are you declaring him/her 'a leftist icon', and where in that article does it declare itself 'liberal' in any way, shape, or form?

Oh DK, you are SO young:

http://www.gadflyonline.com/best_of_2001/MONDAY-ISSUES/abbie-hoffman.html

....

[...]

In the summer of 1968, the Yippies set out to subvert the Democratic National Convention in Chicago by holding a Festival of Life. Mayor Daley’s storm troopers were poised as if for a foreign invasion. Tanks and jeeps and barbed wire were placed at the entrances to all the bridges. Seven hundred cops were lobbing tear gas grenades and beating up protesters, having actually sealed off all park exits so the kids couldn’t get out. There were bizarre scenes everywhere: police tear gassing a floodlit cross, Abbie with the word "FUCK" written in lipstick across his forehead, protesters climbing a Civil War sculpture (looking like a parody of soldiers putting the flag on Iwo Jima).

Chicago in Abbie’s opinion was "a Perfect Mess," a situation he considered ideal for undermining the status quo. "In a Perfect Mess, everyone gets what he wants," he said. "In a Perfect Mess, only the System suffers." Here he is, ranting on in Revolution for the Hell of It:


We had won the battle of Chicago. As I watched the acceptance speech of Hump-Free (new slogan: Dump the Hump and Vote for Free) I knew we had smashed the Democrats’ chances and destroyed the two-party system in this country and perhaps with it electoral politics. Nixon-Agnew vs. Humphrey-Muskie. Four deuces. HA! HA! Losers ALL! (See McLuhan’s brilliant article in a recent Saturday Evening Post entitled "All the Candidates Are Asleep.") There was no doubt in my mind when I saw that acceptance speech that we had won. There would be a Pig in the White House in ’69. I went out for champagne, brought it up to the MOB office, and toasted the Revolution. Put on my dark glasses, tucked my hair under my hat, pasted on my mustache, and called my wife. Told her to ditch the Chicago police tailing us and pick me up. I checked my phony identification cards and my youth ticket. In a half-hour we were at O’Hare Airport, two hours later back on the Lower East Side.

Chaos was Abbie's ideal playground. He instigated it, reveled in it, conjured it up with a sorcerer's glee. Like the Continental Op in a Dashiell Hammett novel, his modus operandi was to stir things up and see what happens. He enters a scene where everyone thinks he understands the situation and his position in it, then tips it over and lets the barrel of monkeys out. Now all the pieces are strewn about; you have to rethink everything. Abbie’s art—like his precursors the Ranters, Diggers and Samuel Rutherford of 17th Century England, along with the Dadaists and Surrealists—was to turn the world upside down and make you see this new reality through his kaleidoscopic eyes.

Chicago was an animated Underground Comic complete with an enraged booboisie, the Chicagoans behaving like good Germans in Nazi Germany, the National Guard going after fourteen-year-olds, the cops forced into absurdist acts such as arresting a floodlit cross, Mayor Daley turned into a raving, hysterical Mussolini and the pusillanimous Democratic Party showing themselves to be craven, spineless, liberal wimps and running lackeys of the Establishment.

There were scenes straight out of Genet’s The Balcony. Cops pushing the crowd from behind to make it look as if the protesters were attacking the police—and ultimately forcing them through the plate glass window of a hotel bar. The soused and indignant bar patrons are aroused out of their middle-class torpor and begin attacking the radicals. And then, as in a black comedy, the protesters take seats at the bar and the little round tables with candle lamps on them, pretending to be customers.

And there’s Jean Genet himself—how he must have loved to see his phantasmagoric theater come to life—along with Terry Southern, William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. Look! Over there! Genet kissing William Burroughs on the lips! Quelle spectacle, mon vieux!

Look! There's Abbie, the quintessential glyph of radical intent, running maniacally through Grant Park, down hotel corridors, dropping ice cubes on cops’ heads like some prankish, mischievous Jewish Roadrunner—laughing uncontrollably as they beat him up in various precincts, trading pop-referential banter with homicidal cops like Groucho Marx in Duck Soup: "This cop says to me, ‘You see this gold bullet? I’m saving it for you, kid.’ I told him, ‘I’m not scared. I got the silver bullet. I’m the Lone Ranger.’"

Everybody’s on stage. When a fellow activist says he’s going to disguise himself, Abbie tells him, "I’m gonna disguise myself, too. I’m gonna disguise myself as a manic depressive." He acknowledged he might be crazy but that, in any case, he regarded schizophrenics—like acid heads—as daring, inadequately understood voyagers in the veiled regions of their own minds.

Chicago was Abbie’s Waterloo. It was his triumph, but at the same time his success began to work against him. In Chicago, fellow activist Tom Hayden recalls, Abbie was "really, really explosive, paranoid, fatalistic, almost to the point of being immobilized. At this point, he had become so symbolic to the police that he couldn’t lead anything, he couldn’t go to a restaurant, he couldn’t do anything. He was shut down."

Abbie turned the subsequent Chicago Seven trial into a theater of the absurd. Asked to identify himself, he said, "My name is Abbie. I am an orphan of America." He claimed Woodstock Nation as his residence. "It is a nation of young people. We carry it around with us as a state of mind in the same way the Sioux Indians carried the Sioux Nation around with them." He and Jerry Rubin dressed themselves in judges’ robes and, when ordered to remove them, revealed that they were wearing police uniforms underneath.

Abbie, always savvy about the floating world of the media, saw that in the end the whole Chicago debacle would be replayed according to people’s expectations of what it was:

The road into Chicago begins and ends in your own head. Daley and the FBI will enter by finding a conspiracy. Jack Newfield will enter through his friend Tom Hayden. Richard Goldstein through me. Marvin Carson and the West Coast through Jerry Rubin. Paul Krassner will enter it through his own mind, as will Jerry Rubin, Allen Ginsberg, and Ed Sanders. Teen magazines will enter through interviews with young Yippie girls (most of the interviews will be made up). Julius Lester will get it right. He always did. The Guardian will enter it through SDS, as will New Left Notes. Ramparts will be mixed, but its emphasis will be on politics rather than theater. The John Birch Society will enter it through Lester Maddox. The National Student Association will enter it through the McCarthy kids.

Jean Genet’s article for Esquire will be fascinating because Genet does not understand English. He will get it right. Rolling Stone will ignore it. EVO will enter it through the Lower East Side. Theodore White won't be able to enter it at all. Meet the Press will enter it through people like Allard Lowenstein, Muskie, McCarthy, and Dave Dellinger. Most interesting will be the way in which the Chicago Seed enters the Myth. The overground press in Chicago will whitewash what happened as soon as the blood is cleaned from the streets. They have to live with Mayor Daley, not the Yippies. The National Enquirer will enter it through its own sexual fantasies.

Playboy will enter it through Hugh Hefner, who got beaten one night. Television will enter it through Yippie, and the New York Times will enter it through the National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam. There was enough of a Perfect Mess for everyone to get a share of the Garbage.

Abbie continued to agitate, aggravate and generally stir things up until 1973 when he was busted in a cocaine deal that turned out to be an FBI set-up. Abbie went underground for six years, continuing, even while on the lam, to fight and win causes, notably Save the River (stopping the Army Corps of Engineers from dredging the St. Lawrence Seaway). But life in hiding was almost as bad as prison for someone as volatile and manic-depressive as Abbie. He needed adversity in order to thrive. He would sit at home and watch TV, screaming, "No! No! No! Lies! Lies! Lies!" That’s how he got through the day. During this time, he had his first schizophrenic breakdown.

On September 4, 1980 (after appearing with Barbara Walters on 20/20 the previous night—hey, never throw away an opportunity to get on an electronic soapbox), he surrendered to the authorities and received a reduced sentence (he served less than a year). When he reemerged, Abbie was as witty and crazy as ever. It was as if Lenny Bruce had risen again. He was to the end a ferocious and wily advocate of environmental causes. Among other things (along with Amy Carter and a group of University of Massachusetts students), he put the CIA on trial and, in 1987, won the case. But Abbie was a prophet who no longer had a role and, as a friend said, "There was always a fear that a genuine existential depression would coincide with a physical depression." On April 12, 1989, it did.

Abbie seemed so alive, so funny, so full of energy and mischief that when he committed suicide people were shocked. And angry. How could he? But this was no cry for help. The autopsy confirmed that he’d taken 150 Phenobarbital and was legally drunk at the time of his death. This was no CIA plot, either. It was the act of a desperate man. He was overwhelmed, he had serious personal problems and everything was breaking down. Clinically manic-depressive, his mood swings had become drastic. On April 7, 1989, Abbie wrote to his ex-wife Anita, "I’ve been in an acute depressive episode for almost two months. This is the most I’ve written and I don’t read. I’m scared to cross the road without Johanna [Lawrenson, his last companion] and am on lots of medication."

"Abbie was a difficult person," Tom Hayden said of him, "but America shouldn’t be a place where difficult people have to commit suicide. I just think he had a broken heart, that’s what I think. Yes, he had a massive ego that nobody had a responsibility to satisfy, but basically what he wanted was less egoistic than most politicians or businessmen."

Abbie entitled his autobiography Soon To Be A Major Motion Picture, but it was a joke—we’d already seen the movie with the main character as star and hero of the age. Anybody fool enough to try and recreate his life with a lame, pudgy actor (without a gram of moxie) in the principal role is a dupe, a fool and a criminal. And for that reason alone, Steal This Movie should be avoided at all costs. To make a boring, plodding, made-for-TV-ish biopic out of Abbie’s life is a capital crime. Dose that movie! Dennis Hopper in Flashback gives a better idea of Abbie’s prankishness and charisma than this travesty. If you want to see a really good Abbie movie, check out his first book, Revolution for the Hell of It by "Free." It is a nonstop, hip, funny, nutty collection of Abbie trailers and assorted shorts that reaches out and grabs you on every page with jumping-out-of-your-skin joy, inventiveness, bizarre mind leaps and profound and boundless optimism.

Abbie is a true hero, an American saint—although a flawed one—in my mind, but would you want your saints otherwise? Through his wits and imagination, he changed America forever. You can say that he helped end apartheid in the South, that he was the chief rabble-rouser in ending the war in Vietnam, that if anyone was emblematic of the spirit of the sixties, it was Abbie. But more than all that, Abbie changed the channel. He changed reality. Like the beagle in the Dali painting, once you had seen America through his eyes, you’d never again see it the old way. Tom Paine as Bugs Bunny as Lenny Bruce as David with his slingshot facing the military-industrial Goliath and saying, "There is absolutely no greater high than challenging the power structure as a nobody, giving it your all and winning."

 

[5stringJeff]

Don't worry DK, I didn't know either. And I was born in the 1970's so I don't remember this kind of stuff firsthand!

 

[HGROKIT]

I have to admit - me and some of my buds were all beered up and toked up - we were all of 14 or 15 - we called the pizza guy to our neighbors, hid in the bushes and when he came, grabbed what was in his car. We thought we thought that up on our own.

 

[007]

I have to admit - me and some of my buds were all beered up and toked up - we were all of 14 or 15 - we called the pizza guy to our neighbors, hid in the bushes and when he came, grabbed what was in his car. We thought we thought that up on our own.

Nooooooooooooo.... you DIDN'T!!!

Hell I just waited until the Roma Pizza truck pulled up and parked outside the grocery store. After he got his hand cart full and wheeled off into the store, I just popped into the truck and grabbed what I could carry. I know... that was against the law and sinful. Whatever... I was eighteen, and that was 31 years ago.